AI The Raven’s Nest held its breath the way old rooms did, like the walls remembered every confession and waited for the next one. The green neon sign outside bled through the front window in a weak wash, painting the glass and the bottles in a sickly tint. Inside, amber light sat low over the bar top and caught in the framed photographs—grainy men in uniform, a bridge in winter, a woman with a cigarette and a look that dared anyone to ask questions. Maps clung to the walls in uneven grids, their corners curling where years of heat and damp had worked at the glue.
Aurora wiped a ring of beer off the wood with a rag that had given up pretending it was clean. Her knuckles smelled of lemon and old gin. The late crowd hadn’t rolled in yet; Soho still stood in that lull where the streets outside sounded like distant cutlery and a bus sighing at a stop.
Silas moved behind her like a quiet tide. The slight drag in his left leg marked him more than the limp itself—an old injury that made him place each foot with care, as if he refused to let pain rush him. He lifted a glass, checked it for lipstick or clouding, then set it down with the rest.
“Your shift ended an hour ago,” his voice carried that calm weight that made people lower their shoulders without knowing why.
Rory leaned her forearms on the bar and looked at the doorway, the empty stools, the mirror with its faint foxing at the edges. The bar smelled of malt and wood polish and something metallic that lived under the floorboards.
“Couldn’t sleep,” her mouth twisted . “Figured I’d earn my keep.”
Silas’s silver signet ring flashed once as he turned a page in the small ledger he kept behind the till. The ring looked wrong and right at the same time, like a relic that refused to age.
“Sleep.” He closed the book . “You didn’t run all the way from Cardiff to collapse in Soho for my benefit.”
The name hit like a knuckle against a bruise. Rory kept her face still and reached for another glass to dry, turning it in her hands. The glass squeaked under the cloth.
“Cardiff didn’t chase me,” she muttered. “I walked.”
Silas watched her a moment, then looked away first, granting her the small mercy of pretending it didn’t matter. He moved down the bar, checking the beer taps, pressing a thumb to the cold metal.
The door opened. The bell above it gave a small, reluctant jingle, like it resented being useful.
A gust of street air rolled in, carrying cigarette smoke and rain on pavement. Rory looked up without thinking. Habit did that; delivery work taught you to clock faces and hands, decide in a breath whether someone planned to buy food or take it.
A woman stood in the doorway with her hood down, hair pinned back hard from her face. She wore a coat that looked expensive in a way that didn’t ask for attention. No dangling earrings, no bright scarf, no messy curls. Her make-up sat clean and sharp, the kind you applied with a steady hand and a mirror that didn’t lie. She held herself straight, chin set, eyes scanning the room as if she catalogued exits.
Then her gaze found Rory, and the mask slipped—not far, just enough for recognition to show its teeth.
Rory’s fingers tightened around the glass. The cloth fell from her hand and landed on the bar in a damp heap.
“Eva?”
Eva’s breath caught. Her eyes stayed on Rory as if Rory might vanish if she blinked. The door swung shut behind her, muffling the outside world.
“Rory,” Eva’s voice sounded lower than Rory remembered, roughened at the edges like it had scraped along too many late nights. “Jesus. That’s you.”
Rory stepped from behind the bar, knees stiff from standing too long. Her trainers squeaked on the floorboards. She stopped a pace away, close enough to smell Eva’s perfume—something clean, almost clinical, with a sharp note that cut through the bar’s stale sweetness.
“It’s me.” Rory’s mouth felt strange around the words. “What are you doing here?”
Eva’s eyes flicked down Rory’s clothes—black T-shirt, faded jeans, a small smear of lemon from the rag on her wrist—and back up to her face.
“I could ask you the same.” Eva’s laugh came out short, no warmth in it. “You used to roll your eyes at places like this.”
Rory glanced past Eva, out of instinct, as if Cardiff might stroll in behind her. The room stayed the same: empty stools, low music, Silas by the taps with the patience of a man who had watched wars start over less.
“I live upstairs,” Rory’s voice came out flat. “I work here. Part-time.”
Eva took a step forward, then stopped herself, like she’d started to reach for a hug and remembered she didn’t do that anymore.
“You look…” Eva’s gaze held Rory’s face. “You look like you, but not.”
Rory lifted her left wrist without meaning to, thumb rubbing over the small crescent scar near her pulse . She dropped her hand and folded her arms instead.
“You look like someone else,” Rory answered.
Eva’s mouth tightened. She glanced towards the booths, the dark corners, the places that offered privacy. Her eyes landed on the bookshelf at the back wall, stacked with old paperbacks and a few hardbacks that looked too pristine . She looked away again with a quickness that didn’t match casual surprise.
Silas cleared his throat. The sound carried, subtle and pointed. He moved closer, his presence filling the space without crowding it.
“Evening,” his tone stayed polite, but his eyes stayed on Eva’s hands. “Can I get you something?”
Eva looked at him, assessed him in a blink—the limp, the ring, the posture that belonged to authority rather than hospitality.
“Vodka. Neat.” Eva’s attention snapped back to Rory. “If that’s all right.”
Rory stared for a beat, then nodded once. She moved behind the bar again because the familiar actions gave her something to hold. She grabbed the bottle, poured without measuring, slid the glass across. Her fingers left a faint print in the condensation.
Eva took the drink and didn’t sip. She held it like a prop, something to do with her hands.
Silas lingered, then turned and walked away, giving them space but not leaving them alone. Rory caught him watching their reflection in the mirror behind the shelves of bottles.
Eva slid onto a barstool. Rory stood opposite her, hands flat on the wood, as if she braced for impact.
“How did you find me?” Rory asked.
Eva lifted one shoulder. “You kept your name.”
Rory’s jaw clenched . “Not by choice.”
Eva’s eyes sharpened. “Him?”
Rory didn’t answer. The bar hummed with low music and the distant sound of glasses shifting as Silas cleaned. Outside, a car horn barked and then cut off.
Eva’s grip tightened on the glass. The skin over her knuckles looked taut.
“I looked for you,” Eva went on. “Not at first. I told myself you needed space. That you’d ring when you settled. That you’d send a stupid postcard with a cartoon London bus on it.”
Rory looked at the vodka. Clear and hard in the glass, like it didn’t care who held it.
“I didn’t want you in it.” Rory’s voice stayed steady. “Any of it.”
Eva let out a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh .
“You didn’t get to decide what I could handle.” Eva tipped the drink back and swallowed. She didn’t flinch. “You vanished. One day you were in lectures acting like the world’s dullest law student, and the next you were gone.”
Rory’s throat tightened. “You told me to go.”
Eva slammed the empty glass down with a crack that turned Silas’s head.
“I told you to run because you turned up at my flat with a split lip and you kept insisting you’d walked into a cupboard.” Eva’s eyes shone, but the light in them looked like anger rather than tears . “I told you to go because you looked at me like you’d already decided you deserved it.”
Rory’s hands curled around the edge of the bar. The wood pressed into her palms. She didn’t look away.
“I didn’t deserve it,” Rory managed. “But I stayed. Again and again. That felt like choosing it.”
Eva stared at her, then looked down at the bar, at the damp ring the glass left behind.
“You used to argue with lecturers for sport,” Eva muttered. “You used to dismantle people with logic and that sharp tongue. Then you let some bloke—”
Rory flinched. Eva’s words hit the air like thrown objects.
“Don’t,” Rory cut in.
Eva’s mouth snapped shut. Her jaw worked, a muscle jumping near her temple.
Rory reached for the cloth again and wiped at a spot that didn’t exist. Her hands needed movement. Stillness left too much room.
“What happened to you?” Rory asked, pushing the question across the bar. “Last time I saw you, you had purple hair and you stole a traffic cone and made it a hat.”
Eva’s lips pressed into a line. She opened her handbag—structured, black, no scuffs—and pulled out a slim cigarette case. She flipped it open, paused when she noticed the no-smoking sign above the spirits, then closed it with a click and slid it back inside.
“I stopped being funny.” Eva’s voice came out thin. “Funny didn’t pay rent.”
Rory stared. “You were never broke.”
Eva’s eyes flicked up, sharp.
“I was never honest with you,” Eva replied. “Not about that.”
Rory felt the words land, heavy as a coin dropped into a jar. She looked at Eva’s face again, searching for the old mischief, the softness around the eyes, the friend who slept on Rory’s bed after nights out and shared hangovers like they were sacred.
Eva kept her posture stiff, spine straight against the stool, hands folded now on the bar as if she attended an interview.
“You look like you’ve been coached,” Rory said before she could stop herself.
Eva’s nostrils flared. “And you look like you’ve been hiding.”
Rory’s mouth went dry. “I deliver dumplings for a living.”
“Yu-Fei’s place,” Eva shot back without hesitation.
Rory froze. “How do you know that?”
Eva’s gaze held. “I asked questions.”
Rory leaned forward, lowering her voice. “Eva, what are you doing?”
Eva’s lips parted, then closed again. Her eyes moved to Silas, then back. She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a small folded piece of paper—creased, handled too much. She slid it across the bar with two fingers.
Rory didn’t touch it at first. The paper looked ordinary, but the way Eva offered it made it feel like a blade laid flat.
“What’s that?” Rory asked.
Eva’s voice dropped. “An address. And a time.”
Rory’s pulse thudded in her wrist, right where the scar sat like a pale moon.
“I don’t do errands for you,” Rory muttered.
Eva’s face tightened, anger and something like fear wrestling under her skin .
“I wouldn’t come here for nothing,” Eva pushed back. “I wouldn’t come here at all if I had a choice.”
Rory’s eyes narrowed . “Choice. Since when did you lose choices?”
Eva’s laugh came out again, short and hard, then she leaned closer over the bar. The scent of her perfume mixed with the old alcohol and made Rory’s stomach twist.
“Since I grew up,” Eva snapped. “Since I stopped having you to cover my back.”
Rory’s chest tightened. The old guilt stirred, hot and sour. She picked up the paper at last, the fold biting into her thumb. She didn’t open it yet.
“You came all this way to drop a bit of paper?” Rory asked.
Eva’s gaze flicked to Rory’s left wrist again, to the scar, then to Rory’s face. Something softened for a beat, a crack in the hard shell, and it hurt more than the anger.
“I came all this way because I owed you,” Eva murmured. “And because I needed you.”
Rory’s laugh held no humour. “You didn’t need me when I begged you to answer the phone.”
Eva’s shoulders pulled in, then straightened again, as if she refused to let herself shrink.
“I didn’t answer because I couldn’t.” Eva swallowed. “I had someone listening. I had people watching. I had—” Her mouth shut, her teeth pressing into her lower lip until it blanched .
Silas’s limp drew closer. He stopped at Rory’s side, the smell of his aftershave faint under the bar’s stale air.
“Rory,” his voice stayed mild, but his eyes held a warning. “Back room. Now.”
Eva’s head turned, startled. Her gaze snapped towards the bookshelf again, recognition flashing across her face like a match strike.
Rory didn’t move. She kept her eyes on Eva.
“You brought something with you,” Rory’s voice went quiet.
Eva’s throat worked. Her hands tightened on the bar. “I brought myself.”
Rory’s fingers closed around the folded paper. The crease cut into her skin.
Silas shifted his weight , the signet ring catching the light as he reached out and tapped the bar once, a small, sharp sound that carried.
“Rory.”